mantis shrimp - did you reinforce the inside of your tank?

ive been reading today on mantis shrimp and am curious, how many of you have taken precautions to prevent a crack in the tank from a mantis shrimp?

i saw some people put acrylic on the bottom, it was also recommended by one of the sites that sell them. the glass is 5/16" thick. if im going to get a sheet of acrylic cut for the bottom should i also get enough to put on each pane of glass inside?

im not sure if its necessary, but with the way ill have my tank setup i cant afford that shrimp breaking the glass. the tank will be plumbed into a 75gal/40gal system. so if it were to break id basically have a huge mess.

 

I would think the only mantis you would need to reinforce for would be a Peacock Mantis....

 

Get a piece of eggcrate from HD and cut it to match the bottom. Helps against avalanches too. The rocks settle into the eggcrate and make it near impossible to have a digging fish disrupt the reef.

 

Works good for stability, but eggcrate has holes big enough for a mantis to go right through.....

 

im no expert but im quite sure the mantis would need to be a real big one to crack the glass

 

To where? Are you saying they break the eggcrate to build tunnels? What do you mean?

 

He was worried the mantis would dig and then break the bottom glass trying to dig farther.. I think this is what he was worried about, in this case egg crate wouldn't stop the mantis from getting to the glass....

And yes it would have to be a very large Peacock Mantis to break glass

 

im more concerned with it spearing the sides of the glass. ive read alot of recommendations to put reinforcement in.

the o. scyllarus is capable of breaking glass at full adult growth. actually i wont name all the kinds because i read that all the ones that "SPEAR" are capable of cracking glass.

so i was curious if people had done anything to reinforce the sides of the glass. im not as concerned so much with the bottom because there will 4" of sand. if it burrows to the glass bottom and then beats something up and misses and hits the glass id be surprised.

just trying to cover my bases. from this post you can see how i intend to have the mantis tank setup. so it'll be a huge problem if that thing cracks the tank. http://www.3reef.com/forums/general-reef-topics/expanding-reef-3-tanks-87569.html

 

What kind of mantis do you plan on getting??

 

I have no experience with spearers.... but I'm assuming the spearer that can crack glass would be the <ebra Mantis, which gets huge!